Downunder Heat (10 page)

There wasn’t time to find the number of the clubhouse, explain the problem then wait for Zakk to be relieved and get to her. She hung up and scrubbed her hand across her face.

Cassie needed her. Would need her for the long months of her recovery. Kitty’s Australian adventure was over. No matter what she and Zakk had, it wouldn’t survive the separation.

By the time Zakk got off patrol and saw the brief message she’d sent, she’d be gone. Some cowardly part of her knew it was easier not to say goodbye in person. She wasn’t strong enough to see him, to touch him, and not break down completely.

She shoved her phone into her bag and hurried to the railway station.

The train was full, and she had to stand most of the way, holding onto the straps and trying to juggle the carry-on luggage which was all she’d taken time to pack. Over and over in her head, she ran through the things she had done and needed to do, while worry and regret beat a constant tattoo—worry for Cassie, and regret for what and for whom she had to leave behind.

In spite of worry and sorrow making her feel shaky and sick, check-in and security went smoothly. No one paid her undue attention or singled her out for a search. In the departure lounge she slumped onto one of the thinly padded vinyl seats and stared blankly out at the tarmac. Her phone rang, jerking her out of her daze.

“Kitty, I got your text. What’s happened? What emergency? Where are you?” The concern in Zakk’s almost broke her heart.

Gulping down a lump of emotion, she said, “My daughter has had an accident. I have to fly home to be with her.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“They think she will be, eventually, but I have to be there.”

“Of course you do. I’ll come at once and drive you to the airport.”

“I’m already there. I caught the train.”

There was a moment’s silence, then he said, his voice low and subdued, “What time does your plane leave? If I hurry I can get there.”

“No, Zakk, you can’t.” Her vision misted over. “The plane boards in five minutes.”

She heard him swallow, then he spoke, his voice rusty and stilted, “You should have got someone to come and get me. I would have driven you up. I would have kissed you goodbye.”

Her chest tight, she whispered, “I’m no good at goodbyes.” Although she wiped her eyes, her voice was thick with tears. “I couldn’t have held myself together.” A sob proved the truth of her words.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. You had more to think about than my feelings. I’ll miss you like hell, but I’ll text you every chance I get, and we can Skype,” he said eagerly. “And you can bet I’ll be at the airport to meet you when you come back. I’ll be the desperate one bearing a zillion bouquets of roses.”

“No, Zakk.”

“No? Not roses?”

The moment had come, the moment she’d been dreading since she realized she would have to leave. Their relationship had barely begun and it would not survive this first hurdle. The only rational thing to do was to end it quickly and cleanly. “No, I won’t be coming back.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Cassie will need me for a long time. This trip to Australia was my little rebellion, my attempt at escaping the demands of motherhood.” A half-sob, half hysterical laugh burst from her. “It didn’t work. I’m going home and I’ll stay there. Don’t email me, or message me, Zakk. It will only prolong the pain. Long-distance relationships don’t work.”

“And you know this how?” he snapped.

“Life experience. Friends. Film. Any number of sources.”

“None of them were us. How do you know it won’t work if you don’t give it a chance?”

“What chance is there? I’m twelve years older than you, I’m a mother of an injured daughter, and I live on the other side of the world. You have a life and a career here. It’s not fair to you to pretend there can be any future.”

“That’s bullshit. Just bullshit. We got over the age thing.” Zakk’s anger and the harsh language made Kitty recoil. “Doesn’t what we have mean anything to you? I love you.”

“You’ll get over it. It will hurt for a while but you’ll move on. I know you will. It would be cruel to try to hold on when there’s no hope. Better to make a clean break now.”

“It doesn’t have to end. We can make it work. There are so many options—”

“Zakk, there’s no point in arguing.” One slow breath followed another, but calm eluded her. “I have to go home. I won’t be coming back. I really…” There was a moment’s hesitation. “I loved the time we spent together, but it’s over.” Her heart ached as if a scalpel had slashed through it. “It’s better to make a clean break now than try to hang on until it dies a slow death.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this. I can’t believe you can give up on us so easily.”

Oh, God, he thought this was easy? The pain almost crippled her but knowing what she was doing was right, and the fairest thing for him, gave her the strength she needed to make the final incision. “I never meant to hurt you, Zakk.”

“If you loved me you wouldn’t do this to us.” He was silent for a moment. “I guess that’s my answer, isn’t it? You don’t love me, not like I love you.”

She wanted to scream a denial. To tell him she loved him—too much to hold him to a relationship with no future—but she kept the words locked inside. If he believed she didn’t care, he would forget her more quickly, put this down to experience and move on. Closing her eyes, she whispered into the phone, “I have to go. I’ll be turning my phone off and I won’t use it again. Goodbye.”

She pressed the off button and wiped her eyes. Before she got into the line to board she flipped open the back of the phone, removed her SIM card and tossed it into the wastebasket. She didn’t need an Australian telecommunications company anymore.

Chapter Six

A chilly, late April breeze sent shivers rippling up Kitty’s arms. The mid-spring weather was too cold to sit outdoors without a coat, but Kitty needed to feel the weak sunshine on her skin, needed to see the sky after days spent sitting with Cassie when she was unable to get out of bed, then weeks helping with her physiotherapy. Each night Kitty had fallen into bed, exhausted by a myriad of small tasks.

With every day that passed, Cassie needed her less. Her internal injuries had healed, and after seven weeks, the cast on her broken leg had been removed. Cassie was mobile, fit and ready to go back to university. Her youth and prior fitness had been partly responsible, but Kitty knew a lot of the improvement was down to Cassie’s strong will and determination.

For the first time in two months, Kitty had nothing she needed to do, no one who needed her. In the small park near her home, the memories she had fought into submission overwhelmed her. The fragile warmth took her back to the black velvet heat of an Australian summer’s night, the cradling shift of sand under a blanket, Zakk’s body hovering over hers.

The ache of wanting him never left her. As she had every time she weakened she shook off the memory. Once, late at night, when her longing had threatened to overwhelm her, she had picked up the phone to call him. The minutes had ticked past, with her knuckles white, her breathing ragged. She’d dialed the first two numbers, then stopped and placed the phone back on the table. Nothing had changed. What she’d said to him the day she’d left was just as valid now as it was then.

Her selfishness had gotten her into this mess. If she hadn’t decided to indulge herself with the trip to Australia, she would have been here when Cassie needed her and she would never have met Zakk. She’d have saved herself, and perhaps Zakk, a lot of pain.

She hoped any hurt Zakk had felt had been fleeting. He would forget about her. The thought of Zakk with another woman hit like a sledgehammer to the gut, but she wanted him to be happy.

Her phone rang. Full of thoughts of Zakk, her heart thudded against her chest. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t shade the screen to read the name of the incoming caller. “Hello.”

“Mum, want to come and keep me company at the gym while I work through my rehab exercises?” At the sound of Cassie’s voice, the thunder in Kitty’s ears quietened and her shoulders slumped.

“Yes. Okay,” she managed.

Cassie’s laugh sounded clearly through the line. “No need to sound quite so enthusiastic, Mum. If you don’t want to, just say so.”

Her decision had been made and the only way to keep going was to be positive and committed. If her enthusiasm had to be forced, that was hardly Cassie’s fault. “If you want me to come with you, of course I want to go.” There, that sounded much more cheerful. And who knew? Maybe some physical exercise would help shove her regrets back into hiding.

* * * *

Two hours later, Kitty wiped the sweat from her forehead and pulled out of her cool-down stretch. “You’re doing so well, sweetie,” she panted. “People will think it’s me who had the accident. I’m exhausted.”

Cassie looked at her with concern. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but you do look really tired—all of the time, not just now.” She picked up Kitty’s towel from the floor and handed it to her. “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done, but I don’t want you to make yourself sick worrying about me. I’ll be all right on my own from now on.”

“I just did what any mother would do, Cassie. I don’t need you to be grateful or to feel guilty.”

“Any mother wouldn’t have had to cut short their adventure of a lifetime and make the long flight back to me.” She wrapped her arms around Kitty and gave her a hug. “You don’t seem like my usual happy mother. I’ve put you through a lot, and I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Kitty said, unable to let Cassie bear the blame for the fatigue and stress she knew showed on her face. “I miss… I met… There was someone…” The words to explain herself to her daughter wouldn’t come.

Cassie leaped on it. “You met someone? A man? Hallelujah—it’s about time. I never understood why you didn’t have someone years ago.”

“When you were little, I wouldn’t—”

“I haven’t been little for a long time now, Mum. This is so good. Tell me all about him. What’s his name and when do I get to meet him?”

“His name is… No, it doesn’t matter what his name is because you won’t be meeting him. It’s over.”

“He dumped you?” Cassie’s outrage made heads turn. Kitty made a shushing gesture. Cassie continued at a lower volume but just as vehemently. “Tell me where to find him. I’ll make him sorry he hurt my mum.”

Putting her hand on Cassie’s arm, Kitty said, “He didn’t
dump
me. I left him when I… When you…”

“You left him because of my accident? Oh great. Now I feel doubly guilty.”

“It wasn’t your fault, pet. It would have been over sooner or later anyway. I never intended to stay in Australia. It was just an extended holiday. Zakk is a great person but—”

“Zakk? Very cool! Sounds far more exciting than George or Fred.”

“There’s more to a person than a name.” It hurt to remember how much more. Zakk had integrity, honesty and more sex appeal than anyone she’d ever met.

“Oh, Mum.” Cassie’s eyes reflected compassion and love. “I can see how much it hurts. You have to go back to him.”

“I can’t,” Kitty said, breathing deeply to control the tears. “When I left to come home, I did it in a way that… I didn’t behave well and I hurt him.”

“Too much to recover from?” Cassie asked. “If you apologize…”

“I told him not to contact me. Made it impossible for him to do it even if he wanted to.”

“Why would you do that? If you like him as much as it seems you do, why would you deliberately cut yourself off from him?”

“Because it wouldn’t work, okay?” Kitty snapped, anger surfacing. “What were we going to do? Carry on a relationship from ten thousand kilometers away? Even if that worked for me, it wouldn’t work for him. He’s a man. He needs someone there, with him.”

“Doesn’t sound to me like you gave him any say in it,” Cassie replied. “You made the decision all by yourself. It’s not like you to be unfair.”

“I am not being
unfair
. I’m doing what’s best for
Zakk
.” Kitty picked up her water bottle. “I am going to have a shower. I don’t want to discuss this anymore. I made my decision, and I’m the one who has to live with it.”

“Zakk has to live with your decision, too,” Cassie retorted.

“This conversation is over,” Kitty said.

Cassie’s mouth tightened as if she would have continued the argument, but Kitty strode off to the change rooms. By the time she’d emerged from the shower, Cassie appeared to have let the subject drop. Over the next week, Cassie occasionally got a determined look in her eye that told Kitty she wanted to talk about Zakk, but Kitty’s forbidding glare kept her silent until she departed for university again.

* * * *

Kitty’s life returned to as normal as it was going to get. She went back to work at her old job, kept the house clean, shopped listlessly for groceries and watched hours of television without ever remembering what she’d seen. If the approaching summer didn’t lift the gray fog that surrounded her, if the increase in warmth didn’t thaw her frozen feelings, she regarded it as the price she had to pay for her brief adventure.

Cassie rang her regularly. Distance gave Cassie the courage she needed to ask at some point in every phone call, “Have you contacted Zakk yet?”

Every time Kitty gave a brief negative and moved on to another subject. When Cassie came home for a break and asked again, Kitty’s patience ran out. “I told you before, I won’t discuss it, Cassie. It’s over and your constant harping on it doesn’t help.”

“Fine,” Cassie said. “If you’re determined on martyrdom, there’s not much I can do to stop you, but take a look in the mirror, Mum. See what this is doing to the woman I once knew.”

As if she hadn’t already seen. As if she didn’t know the woman who, while in Wollongong, had glowed as much from happiness as from the faint kiss of the sun, was now gaunt and white, eyes flat, skin dull. Her appetite had deserted her. A carton of yoghurt or a piece of fruit had become her most frequent meal. How ironic that, after years of trying and failing to lose weight, misery had done it for her.